Lucy Writes… February 2016

From Lucy

Lent is often the time we give up things; perhaps chocolate, or TV, in order to focus more on God. But I wonder what do you do with the money that you saved from not buying that chocolate bar? How about giving that money to charity? What about using that extra time you would have spent watching TV and help someone in need?

This year as a church family we will be using the material called 40 acts through Lent. Each day there will be a challenge to do one generous act. You can either have an email sent to your inbox each day: you can sign up at http://www.40acts.org.uk, or you can take away a wall chart and put it
up on your noticeboard/wall at home (wall charts will be made available at the beginning of Feb). These wall charts will be available for all families and those who don’t access to the internet.

If you do use the internet you will also have access to a daily reflection: this year they will feature reflections from Rev. Kate Bottley (Googlebox), Bridget Plass, Steve Legg (Sorted Magazine), Graham Miller (CEO of London City Mission) and many more.

As well as the daily challenges, we will be looking at the themes of generosity on a Sunday morning, across all the different age groups. We will be looking at the signs of Jesus in John’s gospel, in an age appropriate way. This is a good opportunity to talk about it as a family perhaps in the car, at the breakfast table, and of course, as you do the next act.

The Connect Group material will also follow the same theme.

Also, on a Sunday morning, we will be inviting people to share with us one of the acts they did during the week and how it went. It is also an opportunity for people to share when someone did something generous for them and how it affected them.

Our hope is that through the studies, practical acts, and through our worship together we will become a more generous people and we will see how generous our God is.

I hope you will join with us to make Lent a more generous time of year!
Lucy